Law Commons^™

Enforcing The Rights Of Due Process: The Original Relationship Between The Fourteenth Amendment And The 1866 Civil Rights Act, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

For more than a century, legal scholars have looked to the 1866 Civil Rights Act for clues regarding the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because the 1866 version of the Act protected only citizens of the United States, most scholars believe that the Act should be used as a guide to understanding the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship-based Privileges or Immunities Clause. A close look at the original sources, however, reveals that the 1866 Civil Rights Act protected rights then associated with the requirements of due process. The man who drafted Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment, John Bingham, expressly described …

It’S Time For The Fourth Circuit To Rethink Deshaney, Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

In 2015, the Fourth Circuit heard Doe v. Rosa, in which the parent plaintiffs sought to extend civil liability to the Citadel’s president, for failing to protect their minor sons from sex abuse inflicted by one of the Citadel’s employees. In dismissing the matter, the Fourth Circuit followed precedent set by the Supreme Court years ago in Deshaney. This interpretation of Deshaney, however, is no longer valid in light of the growing number of sexual misconduct cases involving educational institutions. Strictly applying Deshaney encourages schools to place their interests higher than the security of their students. In …

Rejecting The Tattooed Applicant, Disciplining The Tattooed Employee: What Are The Risks?, Stephen Allred

Law Faculty Publications

In the last twenty years, there has been a significant rise in the popularity of tattoos. Once relegated to the marginal realm of sailors, motorcycle gang members, or dock workers, tattoos are now proudly displayed by NBA stars, rock artists, and film actors. Perhaps not surprisingly, American workers, particularly younger workers, have emulated their idols and obtained tattoos too—at a remarkable rate. In fact, a 2012 Harris Poll found that one in five American adults had at least one tattoo. And while increasing percentages of Americans view tattoos as acceptable (indeed, even as art), tattoos still carry a persistent stigma …

Slavery, Free Blacks And Citizenship, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

Reconstruction Amendments says about the nature of American citizenship. The essay is organized as follows. Part I of the essay explores citizenship and membership by discussing belonging-based citizenship and rights-based citizenship. Part II describes how American and African American citizenship were constructed prior to the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments. Part III notes a few cases to explain how the Reconstruction Amendment's jurisprudence has developed in the wake of Dred Scott v. Sandford' and possibly led to a tilt toward a rights-based citizenship rather than a somewhat more robust belonging-based citizenship.

The Origins Of The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Part Iii: Andrew Johnson And The Constitutional Referendum Of 1866, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

This Article divides the events of 1866 into four phases. First, I discuss the early framing debates and the political rupture between congressional Republicans and President Andrew Johnson that occurred in the spring of 1866. Johnson’s March 27 veto of the Civil Rights Act and the congressional override were major public events and signaled what would become the central issue in the fall elections: whether the southern states should be readmitted without condition, or whether they must first be forced to protect the rights of citizens of the United States. The second Part discusses the final framing and initial public …

Federalism, Individual Rights And Judicial Engagement, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

Contemporary “rights talk” under the American Constitution tends to focus on individual rights or those rights that can be perfected in the case of a single individual. This would include, for example, the rights to free expression, free exercise of religion, sexual autonomy, or the right to equal treatment. Under the broad umbrella of individual-rights talk, theoretical discussions generally involve whether courts ought to recognize a particular individual right or what level of scrutiny (or engagement) ought to apply to judicially identified individual rights.

From the beginning of our history as a nation, however, the concept of legally cognizable rights …

The Origins Of The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Part Ii: John Bingham And The Second Draft Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

Historical accounts of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment generally assume that John Bingham based the text on Article IV of the original Constitution and that Bingham, like other Reconstruction Republicans, viewed Justice Washington’s opinion in Corfield v. Coryell as the definitive interpretation of Article IV. According to this view, Justice Miller in the Slaughterhouse Cases failed to follow both framers’ intent and obvious textual meaning when he sharply distinguished Section One’s privileges or immunities from Article IV’s privileges and immunities.

This article, the second in an extended investigation of the origins of the …

A Textual-Historical Theory Of The Ninth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

Despite the lavish attention paid to the Ninth Amendment as supporting judicial enforcement of unenumerated rights, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the Amendment's actual text. Doing so reveals a number of interpretive conundrums. For example, although often cited in support of broad readings of the Fourteenth Amendment, the text of the Ninth says nothing about how to interpret enumerated rights such as those contained in the Fourteenth. The Ninth merely demands that such enumerated rights not be construed to deny or disparage other nonenumerated rights retained by the people. The standard use of the Ninth Amendment, in other …

The Inescapable Federalism Of The Ninth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades, the most influential work on the Ninth Amendment has been that of libertarian scholar Randy Barnett. Over a series of articles and books, Barnett has presented the Ninth as a provision originally intended to preserve individual natural rights. Recently uncovered historical evidence, however, suggests that the Ninth originally limited federal power in order to preserve the right to local self-government. I presented this evidence in two articles published by the Texas Law Review, the first dealing with the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment, and the second dealing with a heretofore lost jurisprudence of the …

Retooling The Intent Requirement Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

Racial classifications carry the largest taint and require the most justification. Strict scrutiny-the level of scrutiny with which the remainder of the article will be concerned-requires that race-based differentiation serve a compelling state interest and be narrowly tailored to serve that interest, guaranteeing that the reason for the differentiation is extremely important and that the link between the means chosen to meet the ends is extremely tight. Though strict scrutiny is difficult to survive, it is triggered only when a state actor engages in intentional or purposeful racial discrimination. Controversy surrounds whether such a trigger is necessary. However, rather than …

Colorblindness, Race Neutrality, And Voting Rights, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

The Reconstruction Amendments' guarantee of civil rights and political equality for racial minorities means that with respect to voting and representation, raceneutral results should be as much a constitutional imperative as colorblind process. As such, a colorblind electoral rule that unintentionally lessens the ability of a minority group to vote or to choose its candidate of choice should be deemed unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment, not merely unlawful under the Voting Rights Act, unless the jurisdiction can provide a strong justification for the rule focused on why such a rule is reasonably necessary to safeguard the electoral process. This change …

The Constitutional Convention Of 1937: The Original Meaning Of The New Jurisprudential Deal, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

The paper traces the dramatic jurisprudential innovations of the New Deal Revolution, including the articulation of incorporation theory, the abandonment of judicial construction of state common law, and the ascension of textual originalism as the Court's method of constitutional interpretation. I argue that the New Deal Court transcended the political goals of the Roosevelt administration and attempted to restructure the nature of legitimate judicial review in a post-Lochner world. Acting, in effect, as a constitutional convention, the Court not only changed the nature of judicial review, it altered the shape of the Constitution in ways that cut across modern political …

The Implicit "Takings" Jurisprudence Of Article 9 Of The Uniform Commercial Code, David Frisch

Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article begins by reasserting that central to the idea of property rights is the legal entitlement to remedies that permits a person to exercise dominion over the specific asset or to exclude the exercise of dominion by others. Next, part I examines the essence of a security interest and demonstrates that it is a protected property interest. Part II sets forth a model of priorities that suggests that although property interests should ordinarily be protected by a property rule, there is something special about a security interest, implying the need for greater contingency and justifying a …